Wild and Wicked

  “They will be angry.”

  “Not near as angry as I.”

  “They may turn on you. Become enemies where once they were allies.”

  “I care not about their allegiance. Only about my son,” Devlynn growled.

  Collin looked perturbed. “Brother, please. ’Twould be best if you stay at the castle. You are the lord.”

  “Aye, and ’tis my son who is missing. I will go.” He pointed a long finger at his brother’s nose. “Call the sheriff.”

  “He’s on his way.”

  “Then you”—he pointed a commanding finger at the captain of the guard—“prepare the search party. We will need men, weapons, horses and provisions. I want the best to go with me.” Pacing angrily, he ordered, “Collin, you are to find the traitor. Someone within these walls allowed the enemy in. Find out who.”

  “The enemy was the woman,” Collin said as he glanced at the stained dress.

  Devlynn’s gut twisted. “But she was not alone. Someone within these walls betrayed us all. He allowed the woman in. He plotted my son’s disappearance, mayhap even gave him something to make him drowsy earlier. If so, he is someone I trust.” Devlynn’s eyes bored into his brother and in a low, determined voice he said, “Make no mistake, I will find the Judas and expose him. When I discover who he is, he will pay and pay with his life.”

  Collin’s smile was as cold as death. “And I will help you.”

  “Good. Everyone, I mean every man, woman and child within Black Thorn, is under suspicion.” A dozen faces flashed before his eyes. His guts twisted. What trusted servant had betrayed him and why? For gold? For vengeance? On the promise of a better freedom? Why?

  Or had it been a family member? His sister or brother?

  What of his guests? Neighboring lords who would gladly betray him for a chance to win Black Thorn?

  Or was it someone else? He considered Father Christmas and the mummers who had followed him inside. Masked. Costumed. Faces hidden. Strangers.

  “Except for the family,” Collin clarified.

  “Including the family,” Devlynn growled as he reached for his sword. “I trust no one.”

  As the words flew from his mouth, Miranda strode into the room. Her face was red with fury, her eyes sparking with anger. “This is an outrage!” Holding Bronwyn close to her breast, she impaled her brother in her furious green gaze. Music rose from the great hall again and conversation buzzed, but the revelry of a few hours before had diminished. Suspicious glances, indignant expressions and gossip replaced the merriment that had rung from the castle walls. “You cannot keep the Lord of Derwynn as a hostage. And what about Lady Camille of—”

  “They will stay until the morrow,” Devlynn insisted. “Most of the guests planned to stay the night, so it is of no inconvenience.”

  “Because they wished to, not because they were forced.”

  In Miranda’s strong arms, Bronwyn sighed dreamily, her little lips parting. Devlynn’s heart wrenched. Where was his son? Was he injured? Alive or … nay, Devlynn cut his dark thoughts short. He would not think the worst. Could not.

  “You suspect your guests? Your friends? And your own family? Me? Aunt Violet?”

  “Everyone.” His voice was as cold as all of winter as he hurried down the rest of the stairs. Ignoring his guests, he cut through a long corridor and headed for the stables. He would find his son.

  If Yale was alive.

  Payton was gone. One minute, he’d been ahead of her, carrying the boy and stealing through the shadows, the next, as they’d rounded a hayrick, he’d disappeared. Along with the soldiers who had been with them.

  She glanced around the inner bailey, her gaze scraping quickly over the huts therein. The smith’s forge glowed red and there were candles in a few other out-buildings, but she saw no sign of her brother.

  Originally, the plan was to meet the rest of their small band at the stables, where they intended to steal the horses. Now, as she crept through the dark grass, silently praying that the kennel dogs wouldn’t put up a ruckus or that she might run into a sentry, she realized that this plan was fated to fail. And it had been changed. Perhaps Payton had intended to leave her all along, she thought, for he had always been an ambitious sort, a man who’d walked through life burdened by the knowledge that he was a bastard, the son of a man who had raped their mother, a constant reminder of the shame their mother had borne.

  At the hands of Morgan of Black Thorn, Devlynn’s father.

  The stakes were high for Payton this night and yet she didn’t believe that he would abandon her to the dungeons of Black Thorn. But then what did she know of Payton and his motives? He stole the boy and the sting on her cheek was a reminder of his ruthlessness.

  She started for the stables when she heard the first alarm—a bell clanging wildly, accompanied by the sharp shouts of soldiers. Oh, for the love of St. Jude, they’d been found out already! With little thought to the consequences she ran across the bailey to the stables. Horses neighed nervously, their hooves shuffling in the straw.

  She slipped through the doorway and stumbled over a man lying just over the threshold. He was gasping for breath and one hand reached upward. “Help me,” he said, his lungs rattling horridly. “Please, lad …” He struggled and she saw the dark stain on his shirt, the hilt of a dagger—her dagger—rising from his chest.

  “Lie back,” she ordered and pulled the weapon from his flesh. It slid out with a horrid sucking sound and the blood flowed fast. “We have to bind the wound,” she said and knew she could not let this man die. “Help! There’s a man injured!” she cried, yelling through the doorway. “Help me—”

  A soldier appeared. “For the love of God, what happened?” Some of the horses started squealing, as if the stench of blood had them panicked.

  “Take this man to the physician. He needs his wound bound.”

  The sentry didn’t so much as cast her a second glance when he spied the bleeding man. “Who did this to you?” he demanded as he bent on one knee and touched the stableman’s shoulder. “Seth, who?”

  “I know not. A stranger—two strangers. They met up with some others and they … they had the lad, Yale, with them … they took the lord’s stallion …

  they … ooooohhh. Tell my wife … tell her …” His voice faded and his eyes grew glassy in the growing light.

  “He needs help, not questions,” Apryll insisted, pocketing the bloody knife as the smell of smoke reached her nostrils and she heard the menacing crackles of flames. Horses were screaming in terror now and she saw a small fire racing through the straw. “Oh, God.”

  “Fire!” the soldier called, hauling Seth out of the stables. Apryll flew into the stalls, tearing at the tethers, setting the crazed animals free. Hooves slashed, wild, white-rimmed eyes rolled and horses bolted into the bailey.

  “Fire!”

  “My God, it’s a fire! Get the buckets …”

  Horses and men ran through the bailey as the stables filled with smoke and hellish flames crawled over the beams and straw, crackling and spitting and smoking. Apryll ran to the well where men were already drawing buckets and women were running with wet sacks. She grabbed one of the sacks and ran into the stables, attacking the flames, praying that, once the fire was under control, she could make good her escape.

  This is Payton’s doing. He’s killed men. Horses. Stolen from the baron and kidnapped his son. As she flayed at the flames, coughing and breathing in smoke, she realized her brother would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Even if it meant killing the baron’s son.

  Chapter Five

  “Fire!”

  “Fire in the stables!”

  “Curse it all!” Devlynn was already on his way out of the keep. Now he bolted, shoving open the door and racing into the night. Outside the wind was high, the night clear aside from the smell of smoke. Moonlight washed against the castle walls and glistened in the dry winter grass where servants, soldiers and guests had taken up wet sacks and pails. Horses ran
throughout the bailey and the dogs barked wildly. Men and women shouted, children cried and pandemonium reigned.

  He rushed down a well-trodden path where, beneath sweeps of the windmill, ice sparkled in puddles. Ancient gears creaked and men carried buckets of water from the stream and the well. Devlynn grabbed two pails and carried them toward the stables where the fire was smoldering.

  “What happened?” he demanded of one of the soldiers whose face was blackened with soot.

  “I know not. The stable master, Seth, was stabbed when the fire broke out.”

  “Stabbed?” Devlynn growled, dousing a few remaining flames. The fire sizzled and hissed but slowly died.

  “Aye, when the horses were taken.”

  “’Twas not an accident?”

  “Nay. Before he died, Seth said that the men who had taken Yale stabbed him.”

  “Men?” He repeated. “No woman?”

  “Nay, not that he said.”

  “But they had my boy with them and he was alive?” Devlynn demanded.

  “I … I know not.” The guard lifted a brawny shoulder. “’Twas Henry who spoke to Seth.”

  Devlynn eyed the warm, sizzling ashes. Most of the stables had been saved, it seemed, though the beams were charred, the walls blackened, the smell of water-soaked, burned wood dispersing into the cold winter air. Some of the guards were rounding up the horses.

  So where was Apryll of Serennog? If she had not escaped with the men who had taken his boy, was she still trapped within the keep? Or had she escaped alone? He searched the eyes of the men and women in the bailey. Could she still be hiding within these very walls? Two men, maybe more, had taken his son, but what of the woman?

  His jaw grew tight as he thought of how easily she’d deceived him, how he’d been drawn to her beauty and wit, how warm and supple her body had felt against his, how boldly she’d kissed him. “An angel,” Aunt Violet had called her, but the old lady had been sadly mistaken, for Apryll of Serennog was far from holy. If anything, she was Lucifer’s mistress.

  Jaw tight, he strode to the stables which smoldered from the fire damage. Lanterns glowed. Men barked orders. Horses shifted nervously as saddles were strapped to their broad backs.

  Two soldiers were carrying the body of the dead stable master outside. The man’s young widow, Grace, clutching her three-year-old son, followed after them, shivering and wailing and trying to cling to a body that would never move again. “Nooo,” she cried, over and over again, though Father Luke, a short, squat man, was following after her, offering a weary shoulder and hollow words of consolation.

  From the kennels the dogs began to bay.

  Soldiers amassed. Nervous horses reared and snorted as they were harnessed to heavy carts laden with supplies and weapons.

  Two men dead. Mayhap more.

  The treasury robbed.

  The stables burned and the best horses taken.

  And Yale missing.

  Because he was foolish enough to be enraptured by a woman.

  A Jezebel.

  He strode into the long, low building and stopped at the empty, burned stall where his steed had been stabled. The gray. Gone. Phantom’s box empty.

  “God’s teeth, there will be vengeance,” he growled under his breath.

  One person knew the truth and that one person was a woman, a beauty, an “angel,” Aunt Violet had called her. Aye, the angel of death and deception. Apryll of Serennog.

  He yanked a pitchfork from a smoldering haystack and hurled it like a spear into the wall. A horse tethered nearby started and snorted. Devlynn barely noticed. His thoughts were centered on the traitorous, seductive, bold woman.

  By the gods, he wouldn’t rest. He’d hunt her to the ground. When he caught up with her, he’d take great and slow satisfaction in wringing her pretty, lying neck.

  Right after he bedded her.

  Apryll watched the lord’s fury from the safety of the chapel window. As soon as she’d seen that the fire would die, she’d slipped through the garden and hurried along a well-trodden path to the first place of refuge she’d found and this was it, a wide room lit by a few dying candles. She’d crossed herself, then stared through the window, spying the lord easily. He was not what she had expected, given his dark reputation.

  Aye, he was tall, but there were others who were taller, and he was broad-shouldered, yet lean, but it was his commanding attitude that caught her attention. Others, though larger than he, seemed to shrink in his presence. He spoke to several of the men, strode into the stables, returned to the outer bailey and was giving orders that she could not hear, could only imagine. But even in his fury she could not imagine him capable of the cold-blooded murder the rumors accused him of. Especially of his own child. Not after she had seen how much his son meant to the lord. But killing someone who caused his child harm? Aye, perhaps he could. She would not stay to find out first-hand.

  How could she escape? The portcullis had rattled shut, the gates to the keep closed, and Apryll would be an idiot to think that the baron would not search every nook and cranny within the walls. There were escape routes within the castle, she was certain of it; every fortress had them, secret passages and sally ports, back doors mounted high on the exterior walls where soldiers could sneak out unobserved, but she knew not where they were. She could tempt the fates and face Devlynn, approach him and beg his forgiveness, offer to help him find his son, but she knew her efforts would only be met with cold, cruel disgust. Damn Payton, why had he left her here? Had it been intentional?

  “God help me,” she whispered, glancing at the crucifix mounted over the altar. She could not hide here forever, for certainly she would be discovered, and she knew so little of Black Thorn, she knew not where a good hiding spot might be. One way or another she had to escape, chase down her brother and somehow free the boy. Only then would she be able to face Lord Devlynn again.

  She spied a heavyset man, the priest, leading a woman to the chapel and her heart sank. Quickly she looked for a place to hide. Certainly not at the altar. Stealthily, she crept into an adjoining chamber wherein she spied a single pallet and small table. There was a curtain covering an alcove. Quickly, Apryll swept the drape aside and found herself in a small passageway only a few feet square with another door on the other side. That door was locked. Though she pressed her shoulder against the thick panels and tugged on the handle, it didn’t budge. She was trapped.

  Her only hope was to hide within this closet of sorts, wait for the priest to fall asleep and sneak past him.

  She heard him enter and, over a woman’s sobbing, listened to him chant a prayer, offer condolences, speak of the husband being now in heaven and a son who would not know his father. The woman’s sobs softened but reverberated through Apryll’s heart. This was only one widow, one child left fatherless. How many other lives had Payton taken?

  Apryll had known there were risks, of course, that some lives might be sacrificed, but Payton had assured her that there was little chance of death, that unless something went terribly wrong with his plan, no one would be seriously injured. He’d been certain that most of the inhabitants of Black Thorn would be a part of the celebration and those left to guard the keep would be drunk or listless and that he would easily subdue them. “’Twill be easy to take their weapons and bind and gag them,” he’d said when she’d asked how he intended to get past the guards. “I have people within the keep, yes, sister, spies who know where the sentries will be, and they are certain that they will be able to offer the guards ale and mead and wine, enough that our small party will pass by unnoticed.”

  What a ninny she’d been to believe him. Now, sitting in this cobweb-infested closet, listening to a grieving widow’s moans and a child’s innocent, troubled questions she felt a horrid sense of guilt. She would never be able to make things right. Not since lives had been lost. She ventured a peek through the crack between curtain and doorjamb and her heart twisted when she saw, in the flickering candlelight, the portly priest softly prayin
g, one fleshy hand upon a woman’s dark crown, a child of two or three hanging onto his mother’s skirts. His eyes were smudged from lack of sleep and he sucked his thumb anxiously.

  You caused this woman to become a widow.

  ’Twas your doing that this boy will never know his father.

  Somehow, someway, you must repay these people—return the boy to begin with and then face Lord Devlynn.

  If you get the chance. Mayhap Payton has already usurped your power. Even now, he could be on his way back to Serennog, proclaiming himself lord.

  Soon she heard the woman and child leave, the shuffling of feet, then the quiet … as if the chamber were empty. She’d been certain the priest would enter his bedchamber, but she heard nothing save for the scratch of claws, mice scurrying behind the walls of her self-imposed prison.

  Should she brave it?

  Tentatively, she edged the drape aside, carefully peering past the edge of the curtain. She stepped into the priest’s bedchamber, her ears straining. The chapel was empty. She made two steps toward the door when she heard footsteps on the path. Quickly she withdrew, through the bedchamber and into the cursed closet again. She swiped the curtain closed and stepped back, to rest against the door, but when she placed her hand behind her to feel for the hard oaken planks, her wrist was caught by a hand with fingers like steel.

  “Oh!” she whirled, but the manacle only tightened.

  “Who the devil are you—?” Lord Devlynn demanded in the darkness and her knees nearly crumpled. He dragged her through the open doorway and up a flight of curved stairs, yanking on her arm, forcing her to follow him ever upward until at last he pushed open another door and yanked her into a wide chamber where a fire glowed and candles burned bright. Tapestries and weapons decorated the walls and a huge bed sat squarely before the grate. Her heart sank, for she knew she was in the baron’s private chamber.

  This was it.

  There was no escape.